broke the silence.

"Why have you brought me here?"

Meltor hesitated. Why not tell her? Perhaps the knowledge would drive
her into making a second attempt to escape. And then....

"I suppose there is no reason why you should not be told," he said
slowly. "It will make no difference--now.

"You have made an enemy in Sephar. How it happened, I do not know--nor
does it matter. It is enough that you are in the way--and must die."

The calm emotionless statement brought no sense of shock to Dylara. She
had known what was coming--known it as surely as though he had said the
words an hour ago. In a curiously detached way she was conscious of the
brilliant sunlight streaming through the windows; of the strident voices
of many birds in the nearby jungle; of the slow-moving wind among many
leaves....

"I do not want to kill you," Meltor continued. "You are too young to
die. I would like to let you go--to leave you in the forest to go back
to the caves you call home."

As he spoke, his hand dropped below the table's edge, fumbled there,
then reappeared, a long knife of stone in his fingers.

"But I dare not do that," he went on, in the same flat monotone. "You
might turn up again in Sephar and ruin everything. I cannot risk it."

Was he, Dylara wondered, trying to goad her into some act of resistance,
that he might escape the stigma of cold-blooded murder? Fascinated,
unable to look away, she watched him lift the keen-edged blade.

Suddenly he rose and lunged across the table toward her. Dylara knew the
moment had come.

CHAPTER IX

Torture

Jotan pushed back his plate and sighed wearily.

"I can't eat in this heat," he complained. "Besides, I have no
appetite."

"It _is_ hot," Javan agreed through a full mouth; "but then it's always
hot at this time of day."

Tamar helped himself to another serving from the pot on the table. "It's
not the heat alone that's taken his appetite, Javan," he observed
disagreeably. "Our friend is so eager for evening to come that he can
think of nothing else. It is then, you know, that he will become the
laughing-stock of all Sephar by asking Urim for a cave-girl to take as
his mate."

An hour before, the three visitors from Ammad had left the palace
audience hall and returned to their quarters. After bathing and getting
into fresh tunics, they had sat down to food brought from the palace
kitchens.

Rising, Jotan crossed the room, sank down on a pile of sleeping furs a